Pulitzer Prize General Non Fiction Winner
The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture
by David Brion Davis
Summary
A profound intellectual history examining how slavery was rationalized, contested, and finally challenged within Western thought from antiquity through the late eighteenth century. Davis traces the slow emergence of antislavery sentiment by mining theological, philosophical, legal, and literary sources, showing that abolition required a fundamental shift in moral imagination. The book established a new framework for studying slavery as a problem of conscience as much as economics.
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Historical Context & Significance
Davis was a founding father of modern slavery studies; his work shifted the focus from the "economics" of slavery to the moral and religious tensions that eventually led to its downfall.